


Time and Eternity

by lonelywalker



Category: Literary RPF
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Literary Threesome, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:22:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is this what sailors do?” Nathaniel asked the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time and Eternity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queeshmael](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queeshmael/gifts).



> Apologies for any anachronistic details or speech.

“Is this what sailors do?” Nathaniel asked the first time. 

He and Melville had been lying in the grass in some secluded spot free from hunters, gentlemen, and small boys intent on battling thistles. Their excuses for meeting had barely even seemed like excuses. Sophia had been gently teasing him about his solitary nature for months now, and it was good for writers to become friendly with other writers, particularly those as well-traveled as Herman Melville. 

Melville was a relative youngster – excitable, impulsive, and as given to acting out his stories as he was to writing them down. But those stories had excited Nathaniel too. Through his natural restraint he’d missed all opportunities for adventure in his youth, let alone encounters with cannibals in the South Pacific, yet Melville had been able to draw him into that world of the high seas so easily during that first picnic… Nathaniel had only had to blink for a little longer, close his eyes and let Melville’s voice take him far from the gentle Massachusetts countryside…

It was with reluctance that he admitted he’d made excuses to himself as well. It wasn’t only the daring escapades that had stirred his interest, and it wasn’t just his interest that had been stirred. When Sophia took _Omoo_ from him and read it herself, she’d laughed over the very passages he’d thought needed to be hidden far, far from her sight. “I think perhaps dear Mr. Omoo has found love in the strangest places,” she’d said, arching a wry eyebrow before laughing again. Of course she was no blushing virgin, but his beloved wife never did cease to surprise him.

When Melville tore their secluded conversation away from philosophy and Emerson’s lectures, talking of Tahitian beaches and the missionaries there, Nathaniel had lain flat, letting the sun wash over his face. With its brightness through his eyelids, he could at least imagine that they were somewhere far from the lands where morality and convention ruled. And when Melville laid a hand on him, feeling the shape of him through his trousers, he could imagine it all the more vividly. Was Melville the rough sailor or the Tahitian boy, though? Did it matter? He was stiffening and thickening all the same.

“We all need company,” Melville said, unbuttoning the flap of Nathaniel’s trousers. “Even among men. It’s only natural.”

He thought of Sophia while Melville’s mouth was on him, although Sophia had never gone beyond little mock-chaste kisses in that region, and he’d never truly wanted her to. Sophia… She’d been gone for a week to her sister’s, and he longed desperately to see her perfect smile, to feel her breasts, to bed her and think of her belly swelling with his children. Was this what the sailors did too? Think of their sweethearts half a world away? He climaxed against Melville’s tongue, stifling the inevitable cry before daring to open his eyes. Melville didn’t ask him to return the favor.

Sophia adored Melville too, reading his “love letters”, as she called them, which Melville sent all-too-frequently. They were often each other’s guests for dinner and hearty friends by day, with Melville letting Julian ride his horse and joining in with his childish games. At night, when they’d fallen into deep conversation, Sophia would bid them a fond goodnight and leave them to their brandy and books. Drawn by something more than closeness, with his wife just a flight of stairs away, Nathaniel would squeeze next to Melville on the same chair, touching, even kissing.

“What do you need from me?” Melville would ask, and Nathaniel couldn’t hope to answer. But he’d go to Sophia afterward with the taste of Melville in his mouth.

Was it infidelity to be with a man in such a way? It was against God, certainly, but offending Sophia’s sense of decency and faithfulness troubled him more. Men often preferred the company of other men. It was no crime to spend hours conversing with men instead of one’s wife, and in truth that was often the greater intimacy. 

“You should invite Mr. Omoo to dinner again,” Sophia said early one morning as they lay together in bed, beautifully post-coital. The children were away with their playmates and would be until the next day. Nathaniel sent over a message.

The evening progressed as all their evenings progressed: excellent food and wine and stories. And then, as they grew quietly comfortable and the darkness set in, Sophia rose and, instead of excusing herself, extended a hand to Melville. “Won’t you come upstairs, sir? My husband has been monopolizing your company for far too long.” Nathaniel was most astonished that Melville didn’t even seem surprised.

The bed was hopelessly small for the three of them and Nathaniel was hopelessly jealous – jealous of Melville for touching his wife, jealous of Sophia being touched like that by Melville. But oh, there was no doubt that his body enjoyed watching it.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Melville asked, pressing Nathaniel heavily down against the mattress, a hand slipping down between his legs.

“Very beautiful,” Sophia agreed. She had enough kisses for them both.

Overwhelmed, Nathaniel could barely catch his breath. But he kept his eyes open this time. Nothing could last forever, and he couldn’t bear to miss one second of it.


End file.
